


Tealeaves

by Glass_Oceans



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Fluff, Fortune Telling, Friday night sci-fi, Kylux Cantina, M/M, Modern AU, This was supposed to be a drabble, tealeaves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 08:39:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10590393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glass_Oceans/pseuds/Glass_Oceans
Summary: When fortune telling becomes fortune planning.





	

“I could tell you your fortune if you wanted… let me read your tealeaves.”

_“Excuse me?”_

Ben had leaned forward with an easy smile to make his offer, but in the wake of Hux’s sneered response, his face fell, and his gaze turned to the dark table top between them.

“Do you honestly believe in that nonsense?” Hux asked, swirling the dregs of his tea in his mug.

Ben muttered something to the table as he swirled his finger through spilled droplets of tea to draw swirls on varnish.

“What was that?”

“I said it’s not nonsense!” Ben eyes flashed as he lifted his head. “It’s something my grandmother taught me. I just... thought you might have been interested.”

Hux snorted, draining the last of the liquid in his cup before setting it down in front of Ben.

“Go ahead then,” he said. “Tell me my fortune. Tell me of opportunities just around the corner and the tall dark strangers that wait there.”

Ben simply sat there and looked at him. Hux didn’t allow his expression to change, but he began to feel uncomfortable under that stare. Ben’s eyes were dark and distant as he looked at Hux; with something else there too, a hurt Hux hadn’t meant to cause.

“Ben, I-“

Ben stood up from the table, opening his wallet to throw a note onto the tea swirls he’d been drawing.

“Doesn’t really seem like you’re all that interested in the possibility. Bye Hux.”

* ** *** ** *

It seemed to Hux that Ben avoided him after that. They passed each other in the office with civil nods, but he was absent from the lunch table. He still called round with Phasma and the others for Friday night Sci-Fi, but Ben sat as far away from Hux as he could manage, sullenly cradling his beer, seeming subdued even when the others got boisterous.

“What’re we watching tonight?” Finn asked, kneeling in from of the DVD player surrounded by plastic boxes.

“How about Battlestar Galactica?” Phasma called from the kitchen.

“Ooh yes!” Rey called, sitting up from the circle of Poe’s arms. “I love Katie Sackhoff!”

Poe groaned and ruffled Rey’s hair, causing her to turn a glare on him.

“Oh bless,” he said. “But there’s only one Starbuck, and it’s not her.”

“There’s more than one Starbuck?”

Poe groaned again and appealed to Ben.

“Didn’t you educate your cousin properly man?”

Ben smiled a little against the neck of his bottle.

“Apparently not.”

Phasma reappeared from the kitchen, snacks and dip in hand.

“Finn, stick whatever you have there in, we’ll be at this all night otherwise.”

“Yes ma’am!”

Duty done, Finn hopped up on the couch to snuggle beside Poe, leaving Phasma to join Hux on the smaller couch, and Ben to drape long limbs over the lazy-boy in the corner. Phasma raised an eyebrow to him at the change of the usual seating arrangements, but shook her head at Hux’s blank look. Hux rubbed his fingers through Millicent’s fur, causing her to stir and chirp before curling up tight on his lap. Ben hadn’t looked at him once all evening, hadn’t said anything to him beyond a cursory greeting when he arrived. But then the theme music started and Ben reached behind him to turn off the lights, and Hux couldn’t watch him at all.

* ** *** ** *

The week rolled on and Ben was definitely avoiding him. Hux hadn’t seen him around the office; Ben wasn’t wandering the corridors like he usually did, and he skipped out on lunch rather than join Hux at the table. Even his ever present black mug was missing from the coffee station.

Hux even tried going down to the den of IT, an office that should have been brightly lit due to location on the fifth floor, but due to some creative… decorating by the staff, resembled something more like a spider’s lair. The other workers there watched him over their screens with amused eyes and vague answers until he backed away and fled back to his own office.

When Finn texted on Wednesday night to let him know that something had come up that was going to drag himself, Rey and Poe out of town, it was swiftly followed up by a call from Phasma, telling him that she was going to make herself scarce too, and for the love of god, do something!. Whatever protests Hux might have made in claiming ignorance of her intentions were swiftly swept away by a cold silence on the line.

Which mean Thursday evening saw Hux doing frantic research between emails, followed by a desperate rush between shops to get supplies,, so that when Friday evening finally came around, everything was in place.

Ben let himself into the apartment half an hour after their usual gathering time, his usual habit, leaving Hux leaping from the stool where he’d been worrying at his nails.

“Sorry guys, I… where is everyone?”

Millicent rushed to Ben as he came through the door, winding around his ankles and chirping for attention. Ben pushed the door closed, bending to answer Millicent’s calls with scratches behind her ears.

“They had to cancel,” Hux answered, trying to position himself to conceal the items behind him on the counter. Ben looked up at home from the floor with liquid dark eyes before turning back to Millie.

“Well kitty, I guess I better be heading off then so you can have a quiet night, eh?”

“Ben, wait!”

Ben looked up again surprised as Hux stepped towards him.

“Look, things have been a little awkward lately, and I thought, I was going to…“

“I didn’t think you were you for apologising.”

Hux blinked.

“I have no intention of apologising,” he said.

Ben huffed and scratched Millie once last time before standing up. He noted Hux’s movement to block something behind him and frowned.

“Then what?”

“I…” Hux paused to take a deep breath. “I was going to offer to tell your fortune.”

“You what?”

“I got hold of some Spring Pouchong tea, and I thought I could... make it up to you.”

Hux stepped out of the way to reveal the tea set laid out on the counter. Ben stepped into admire it, fine china cups, silver spoons laid out to measure and stir the leaves. He nodded in appreciation of the effort.  
“All right” he said, half sitting on Hux’s vacated stool. “Lead on.”

They exchanged no more words as Hux turned to boil the water, and Ben watched his every movement as he prepared the leaves, steeping the tea before handing him a leaf filled cup. Ben blew on the steam once, and then emptied the cup in one swallow, keeping his teeth against the rim so as not to drain away the leaves too. He licked the last drops of tea from his lips as he handed the still warm cup back to Hux.  
Hux took the cup with a small smile, and proceeded to make a show of turning the cup and examining the pattern of leaves. Ben snorted.

“What are you not going to tell me about tall dark strangers? “

Hux slowly shook his head as slowly rotated the cup.

“No, I’m afraid not. No dark strangers for you I’m afraid.”

His eyes flicked up as he spoke, catching Ben’s briefly.

“So…” Ben said, shifting on the stool, watching Hux’s hands. “Perhaps a fair haired not-stranger?”

“Perhaps,” Hux said, placing the cup on the counter between them. “If you actually believed in that kind of nonsense.”

Ben smirked as he looked down at his folded hands.

“You don’t think this was a bit… elaborate?”

Hux shrugged.

“I’ll probably use the tea, I guess. But you don’t get to talk about elaborate when you have the most convoluted way I’ve ever seen of hitting on someone.”

Ben’s grin widened as he lifted his eyes to catch Hux’s.

“But it worked, didn’t it?”

Hux leaned in close until he could smell the floral notes of the tea on Ben’s breath.

“Yeah, guess it did.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by [this prompt](http://kyluxcantina.tumblr.com/post/159119620858/tealeaves) on the Kylux Cantina. 
> 
> Many thanks to [rawingryu](http://rawringryu.tumblr.com/) who encouraged me to polish this up and put it up here.


End file.
